UFC on Versus 3 draws series-low average audience of 681,000 viewers

Ratings for Thursday’s action-packed “UFC on Versus 3: Sanchez vs. Kampmann” event slipped from the marks of the first two editions to a series-low audience of 681,000 average viewers, MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) today confirmed.

Despite an instant-classic main event between perennial welterweight contenders Diego Sanchez and Martin Kampmann, the event scored a household rating of just 0.67.

UFC on Versus 3 took place at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Ky., and aired on Versus.

The series high came with the special’s debut event in March 2010 when 1.24 million viewers tuned into the longtime home of the WEC to watch Jon Jones dismantle Brandon Vera at “UFC on Versus 1: Vera vs. Jones.”

Those figures dipped slightly this past August, when an average audience of 991,000 viewers tuned in to watch “UFC on Versus 2: Jones vs. Matyushenko,” in which Jones returned for a first-round TKO of longtime veteran Vladimir Matyushenko.

UFC on Versus 3 marked the series’ first Thursday-night episode. The previous two specials aired on Sunday night.

Still, the MMA ratings are slightly above average for Versus, which averaged a little more 601,000 viewers for the 18 WEC events it aired between 2008 and 2010, though the numbers often fluctuated wildly depending on the depth of the fight cards. In fact, just three events in WEC history (WEC 41, WEC 38 and WEC 34) drew more viewers than UFC on Versus 3.

However, the figures still fall short to those generated by the UFC’s usual cable partner, Spike TV, which generally draws in the 1.5 million to 2 million viewers range for events of similar prominence.

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